Tag: Guitar Gear

Guitar Gear Notes

UPS… come on guys. I mean, I used to be one of you! I worked in the Chelmsford Hub for a year. I loaded trucks bound for the Worcester, MA Center. I loaded trucks for the Portland, ME Center. That was a major volume belt. Come on guys, let’s deliver my new (used) amplifier. My June Music project Trello board tells me I have two songs waiting for lead guitars, and if you drop off that sweet little AC15 I can use it for those tracks tonight.

Come on, UPS. Let’s get ‘er done!

In other gear news, I was clued in to an independent pedal builder in Ohio who is selling clones of the Fulltone OCD pedal and donating the money to Black Lives Matter bail funds. How awesome is that? Seriously, that made me so happy. He did a very small run (looks like his business only does small runs. In fact, it feels like the business is just one guy in his house) and then did a second slightly bigger run (the pedals are named Black Lives Matter and that too is awesome). I sent him three questions on bookfayce. Are you going to make more, which version of the OCD pedal are you cloning, and how much are you charging. I know it’s going to be expensive, but if he makes more and I get a chance to buy in, I am totally going to buy one. I’ll do it for two reasons. First, I want to use all the arguments I had a few weeks ago as an excuse to donate some money to the cause. Second, I still want an OCD pedal and I want to stick it to Fulltone. Petty? Yes. I don’t care.

There are other companies making OCD clones because of this situation, but for some reason this is the one that’s calling out to me. The name of the company is Malaise Forever Customs. Here’s hoping they make more.

The Trigger Has Been Pulled

I just pulled the trigger on a used Vox AC15. It will be delivered to my house but it’s coming from California. I’m guessing the delivery will take about two years, and when it gets here the vacuum tubes will be nothing but a pile of glass dust at the bottom of the cabinet.

WOOHOO!

It’s Still There

The used Vox AC15 I was checking out the other day is still available. I told myself it was still there on Tuesday morning I was going to pull the trigger.

That Pedal Show did a whole episode on the AC15. I forgot about this one. The used an OCD pedal…. this was pre-racist rant. I’m not using mine anymore. Likely ever.

15 Watt 1X12 Tube Amps

I’ve watched this video a bunch of times and I was watching it tonight because I couldn’t fall asleep.

They compare three 15 watt combo amps with a single 12 inch speaker: Fender Blues Junior, Vox AC15, and Fender Bassbreaker 15. I have a Bassbreaker 15 and it’s currently my #1 amp for playing at home. I mentioned earlier that I’m on the verge of talking myself into buying an AC15 too. I want to run the two amps together and if I can get enough volume out of the combination they might turn into my gigging rig (assuming the Coronavirus ever allows us to play gigs again).

Just posting the video (I bet I’ve posted this one before) to try and psyche myself into buying the Vox. That’s all.

It’s 11:30. I think I’ll be able to sleep now. Goodnight, everyone!

AC15

Guitar Center has a used Vox AC15 amplifier on their website that is listed in great condition and listing for under $500. A few minutes ago I tricked my beloved wife into agreeing to let me buy it. Ain’t I a stinker?

I further read the listing and it says it will be shipped from it’s current location to a local Guitar Center store where it will be available for curb side pickup.

Oh.

Well.

You mean I’d actually have to go to a store and briefly interact with another human being? Yeah… maybe I’ll wait and see if I can get someplace to ship a used one to my house.

Thanks anyway.

June Music Addendum

Yesterday I posted a little recap of the June Music project so far. I mentioned how the Keeley D&M Drive didn’t play nicely with the Klon KTR the way the OCD did. It just dawned on me why.

Light dawns on Marblehead, as the saying goes.

I was running the OCD at 18 watts. That’s why. The D&M runs at 9 watts. 18 watts gives more headroom. It can handle more signal before it craps all over itself. The KTR puts out a tidal wave of signal. An avalanche of signal. A city sized asteroid plowing into the Earth at a zillion miles a minute of signal.

18 watts gives enough headroom to handle the signal level. 9 watts does not. That’s also why dialing back the output level on the KTR made things sound better.

Headroom.

QED

Pedals… or… RIP My Fulltone Pedals

Sometimes it sucks having a conscience, but what’s a red head to do.

Look back through this page and you’ll read me singing the praises of a guitar pedal company called Fulltone. Also notice that you never see me singing the praises of a guitar pedal company called JHS, but that’s another story.

I own three Fulltone pedals. Two are OCD overdrives which are hands down the best higher gain overdrive pedals I’ve ever played. The third is a Clyde Deluxe Wah. I have been chemically dependent on wah pedals since the first time I heard “White Room” back when I was in Junior High School and I will go to my grave feeding that addiction. I’ve owned a bunch of wah pedals over the decades and the Clyde Deluxe is so much better than all of the others that there is no comparison.

Fulltone is a guy named Mike Fuller. Yesterday he posted some stuff about the Black Lives Matter protests that make me never want to touch any of his stuff again. I hate it when politics get in the way of something unrelated to politics, but I have to listen to my conscience because, unlike many of my fellow Americans, I like to think I’m a decent person.

Mike had it out with a guy who runs the “Fulltone Pedals” Facebook page yesterday and some screen shots were posted to reddit. I am going to try and post them here but I don’t know if reddit requires permissions to view their images without a login. If you can see it, cool. If not, oh well.

So I have an OCD on both boards. On the main board I will replace it with the Dan side of the Keeley D&M Drive. That circuit is based on the OCD and it sounds fantastic. I don’t know what I am going to do for the back up board. Is it time to buy a Rat? For the Clyde though…

I’ve never played anything that was even close to as good. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. I’ll have to buy something. Wah pedals are like water to me, I can’t live without them for very long. I’m looking for suggestions. It’s research time.

I Don’t Have the Tools

I had a bad morning.  I was all emotional and messed up and stuff.  Two really awful night’s sleep in a row put me in a pretty screwy state of mind.  Before I fell into my personal little black hole I was talking to Jen about things we can do to keep our heads.  Seems ironic now.  I said that I need to try and give myself the illusion of control over our crummy situation and one of the ways I can do that is to try and be creative.  I’m going to keep trying to write and record terrible songs until it’s all over.  Of course I had the opportunity to work on music this morning but did I?  No.  Bad day.

March is almost over.  I want to do another 10 songs in April.  My tiny little brain wants to change the March process up (guitar straight into an amp, like some kind of neanderthal) by allowing one pedal.  My little Fuzz Face mini.  I have heard that a Fuzz Face circuit is really simple.  What, thought me, if I gave myself another project and finally built a pedal of my own?  There are companies that will sell you kits with all the parts you need and you just have to assemble it all.  I was so going to do it.  Then I realized I don’t own a soldering iron.  Or solder.  Or literally any tool required to build a circuit board.  Damn it.  I guess we’ll punt on this until after the COVID-19 gives us our lives back.

I did go looking for youtube videos showing people building fuzz pedals.  There are a couple, but nothing really like what I want to see.  Instead I found an episode of That Pedal Show from 2015.  I’ve never watched this one, but they compare a few different Fuzz Face pedals.

Let this video kill off 11-12 minutes worth of your coronavirus exile.